Downtown ARG
I’m excited to see what happens with this project. It sounds creative, innovative, and fun.
In my hometown (Alexandria, LA), our downtown is in the process of being revitalized. Some events/places that have helped this are as follows:
- Tamp & Grind – a super cool coffee shop
- The Bentley – a historic hotel has been bought, the insides will be turned into condos
- Dragon Boat Races – the Alexandria Museum of Art’s annual fundraiser on the Red River
- Zombie Walk – where folks dress up like zombies and hang out downtown (I think it’s pretty lame, but some folks like it)
Maybe these events/places will inspire us in revitalizing Shreveport’s downtown.
Advertising within Centenary
One of my pet peeves is when students say that they don’t read the What’s Happening emails, or signs around campus, or respond to Facebook events. Often, students do not reply to said complaints with ideas that would improve communication between students and organizations.
Honestly, I don’t think that there are major problems with communication between organizations and students. I think the problem, if any exists, lies with the students. I can’t think of any other ways to try to get students’ attention about events or programs. Ultimately, the responsibility relies on the student to take the time to read the emails, signs, and Facebook invites. The information is there, students just need to read.
Another problem that is a factor for the issue of getting students informed is the apathetic attitudes that many students seem to have in regards to attending events, especially events that are not solely centered around having fun. Events that are educational, or centered around advocacy hardly ever receive the amount of attendees that events sponsored by CAB, for example. I have no ideas as to how to get students interested in ideas and programs that are important to those hosting said events.
Biases and Blunders – Chapter 1
Chapter 1 from Nudge was not the most interesting thing to read. I didn’t really get much out of this chapter; the argument was vague and some of the examples for the concepts could have been improved. But, without further ado, here are some notes that I took from this chapter:
This chapter mainly focused on cognition and common thinking errors. Before introducing the “rules of thumb” for thinking, the authors established two kinds of thinking: intuitive (Automatic System) and rational (Reflective System). Everyone uses each of these thinking methods.
When there is interplay between the Automatic and Reflective Systems, heuristics and biases often emerge. A heuristic is a “rule of thumb” that can lead to a systematic bias. One process of heuristics and biases is called “anchoring and adjustment.” You start with some anchor, for example, the population of Shreveport, and adjust it in the direction you think is appropriate to determine, for example, the population of New Orleans. “The bias occurs because the adjustments are typically insufficient” (23).
Anchors can influence the adjustment process. For example, if one has a starting point for an anchor, the adjustments will most often be in relation to the anchor. Charities often use this technique when asking for donations. By offering suggestions for donations ($250, $500, etc.) donations will most likely average out to be withint the range suggested for donations.
The next “rule of thumb” is “availability.” This method assesses the likelihood of risks by asking how readily examples come to mind. The more recent the event, the greater impact it will have on our behavior. Biased assessments of risk can influence many things, including the political process. For example, the government may allocate their resources in a way that fits with people’s fears (a nuclear power accident) than in response to the most likely danger (strokes).
The final “rule of thumb” is the most frustrating. “Representativeness” is also know as the similarity heuristic. Basically, it encourages stereotyping, stating that they “are often right.” and this rule of thumb “often works” (26). For a chapter about thinking errors to be encouraging stereotypes is totally backwards! Through my eyes, this section of the chapter made this book lose a lot of it’s credentials.
According to the text, the only bad side of this “rule of thumb” is that it can cause serious misperceptions of patterns in everyday life. The example they used was overanalyzing a coin toss that resulted in heads, three times in a row. This “rule of thumb” can cause people to confuse random fluctuations with causal patterns.
Dsy4ia
Today, I presented about the effect of playing certain types of video games can have on the user, in regards to empathy sympathy. A game that I mentioned in my presentation that really spoke to me is Dsy4ia.
Dsy4ia is a series of mini-games that explore the cultural challenges and personal hardships of being a transgender person. The game is broken up into four sections that shows players the intricacies of gender representation, hormone therapy complications, financial and medical issues, and the journey to things “getting better”.
Something that is presented int this game that everyone can relate to, is the uncomfortable feeling you get when you don’t feel right in your own skin. Maybe it’s when you wore that scratchy church dress when you were 5 that you only wore once for Christmas Eve dinner. Or maybe it’s something a lot less literal, like when you were teased for wearing glasses, or saying something that wasn’t cool enough to qualify to hang out with the popular kids. Whatever the case may be, I’m sure that we have all felt uneasy with ourselves at one point or another.
Now, imagine that feeling you get when you’re uncomfortable about yourself. That weird, almost nauseating feeling in your stomach; your clammy hands; you start to blush and maybe the room even spins a little. Imagine feeling something similar to that (perhaps not so extreme) everyday when you woke up until you went to sleep, continuing on for years to come. Believe it or not, there is a large amount of folks that feel this way, especially in regards to gender expression and gender identity.
If these terms are new to you, let me define them for you: “Gender expression” refers to the ways we express our gender, through our dress, dialect, body language, etc. Gender identity refers to how we identify: man, woman, both, neither, etc. I know this is a pretty radical new concept, so stay with me!
This game is about an individual who’s gender expression wasn’t matching up with their gender identity. This individual identifies as a woman, however her expression (along with society’s binary view of gender) influenced lots of individuals to mistake her for a man. I’m sure we’ve all made that mistake.
Person X: Woah, see that lady over there? She looks so weird.
Person Y: Uh, dude – that’s def a man.
X: Nuh uh!
Y: Yea huh!
The thing to remember here is that identities can only be established by the individual themselves. This means that I can’t tell John Jingleheimer Smith that because he wears a skirt means that he’s a girl. 1) It’s absolutely NONE of my business how John identifies (and his identity doesn’t have to ‘match up’ with his expression) and 2) John is the ONLY person who can say how he identifies.
Anyways, forgive me for the rant. Here is the link you can play Dsy4ia at. I highly recommend playing it.
TED Talk: Coding a Better Government
I’m not sure how I feel about this TED Talk. The idea that “government [can] be run like the Internet, permissionless and open,” is new to me, and I haven’t warmed up to it yet.
I guess the idea that apps can help “connect citizens to their government,” while it may be true, rubs me the wrong way. I think that this idea (to have apps correlate with the government) may be appropriate and even helpful in some neighborhoods. However, for many neighborhoods across America, this is not a feasible or appropriate plan due to the economic standing of many Americans. In my hometown (Pineville/Alexandria, LA), 24.3% of persons are below the poverty level from 2006- 2010. In Louisiana, the statewide percentage of persons below the poverty level is 18.1%. The assumption that I made about these individuals below the poverty line is that they can barely afford groceries – never mind a smart phone!
In Pineville/Alexandria, we have some pretty nice public libraries with computers available for use from those with a library card. However, as far as I could tell, from looking at Code for America’s website, the apps provided are to be used from a smart phone, not a computer. All of the apps provided are also for major cities – the closest one to my hometown (and the only one in Louisiana) is located in New Orleans (who’s percentage of persons below the poverty level is 24.4%).
When I compare these poverty levels to, for example, the issue of fire hydrants being covered in snow, my gut feeling is frustration. The solution of having an app to fix this problem sends the message to me that only those with a smart phone (which can imply that the citizen is at least middle-middle class) can be productive members of the community in this situation. Also, in my opinion, while having fire hydrants readily available for use is important, so is improving the levels of poverty across America. It frustrates me that issues that seem trivial to me have apps such as this that are being funded in a city that’s percentage of persons below the level of poverty are higher than New Orleans’.
Design for Good
Within the first 2 minutes or so of this video, I was convinced that it was just an advertisement without much meaning behind it. However, within the next 2 minutes, my mind had changed completely. The part of the video that convinced me that this organization might actually be pretty cool was the description of projects completed by members of AIGA.
The projects that really stood out to me were the ones focused on teens and kids. The first project, taking place in Middletown, Connecticut, was confusing to me. I couldn’t tell what the mission or purpose was, and what action members took to fix this unclear problem. The second project was incredibly interesting to me. A member designed kid-friendly products for children with diabetes. These products were eventually picked up by Johnson & Johnson. I was impressed with this project because the member took an unhappy event in his life (his daughter being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes) and improved an aspect of a larger problem. I had never thought about the availability of kid-friendly products for chronic ailments. I would be interested in learning more about that.
I really enjoyed the video – so much that I went to their website. There are loads of different projects there that I can become involved in. One site that I have open in my tabs right now is Catchafire. I intend to use this site to search for resources available nationwide and (hopefully) locally to help out with the National Organization for Women at Centenary. I am the president and founder of this chapter, and would love help with projects. Currently, I am working on putting together a feminist zine and will need help with selling ads and putting together the layout/printing. *hint hint*
Overall, I adored this video and was inspired to be creative when solving problems.
England
This summer I traveled a lot. My first trip was overseas to England. I was invited to spend two weeks with my speech and debate coach from high school at her parent’s home in Gerrard’s Cross, England in June. One of my favorite things I did there was seeing the old stones at Stonehenge and Avebury. At Stonehenge I listened to an audio guide that was supposed to tell me the history behind these massive rocks. Instead I learned that there are bunches of theories behind every aspect of the building of this structure, and nothing is definitely known. So while the visit was pleasant and it was amazing to see these huge stones, I felt as if I didn’t learn anything significant about the history of these stones. The same day, we went to a town called Avebury. There, we saw older stones that vistors could actually touch. I didn’t learn anything in particular about these rocks either, but it was a neat experience to be able to touch them and hang out with the sheep roaming about in the pasture. This was my third time traveling overseas, but the first time without my parents. Overall, I had a wonderful time, and this trip was the highlight of my summer.
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